In your own backyard

Recently I got an assignment to shoot some pictures for a story here in Norway, that served as a reminder to me. And now perhaps it could be for you as well.

The pictures I was asked to take was for a story on pipes used for water and sewage to holiday cabins along a stretch of Norwegian coastline. It turned out the pipes were wrapped in led to hold them down, and as it turned out there must be, a rough estimate, at least 10 tonnes of led used in just a few km of coastline. As you may know, led isn't all that good for the environment (thus pipes these days are usually held down with other material in Norway, these were mostly old sins). I got some decent shots and the magazine gave these shots a few pages. Environmentalists were naturally enraged to find out that no thought had been given by the local government to the effects of led in the water.

I say it is a reminder, because I have been diving along the Norwegian coastline and elsewhere mainly to have nice dives and get nice pictures. And on wetpixel I see mostly beautiful pictures. But it has occured to me perhaps we should turn our cameras on the ugly a bit more often. We depict the world under water as quite a paradise, but seem to forget paradise is under threat for a great many reasons.

As UW photographers we have the ability to go places most people can't reach, and show them things that they may not know. For example how the environment is under threat, and not just colourful tropical fish. So perhaps we should take the opportunity to show that a bit more often. To swim in the other direction, in search of really "bad" pictures.

It also makes sense journalisticly, so if you aspire to have your pictures published you may find more interest in such pictures than your clownfish snaps. And it can perhaps be done in your own back yard, or perhaps I should say back water.